UNetGE: A U-Net-Based Software at Automatic Grain Extraction for Image Analysis of the Grain Size and Shape Characteristics

The shape and the size of grains in sediments and soils have a significant influence on their engineering properties. Image analysis of grain shape and size has been increasingly applied in geotechnical engineering to provide a quantitative statistical description for grain morphologies. The statistic robustness and the era of big data in geotechnical engineering require the quick and efficient acquirement of large data sets of grain morphologies. In the past publications, some semi-automation algorithms in extracting grains from images may cost tens of minutes. With the rapid development of deep learning networks applied to earth sciences, we develop UNetGE software that is based on the U-Net architecture—a fully convolutional network—to recognize and segregate grains from the matrix using the electron and optical microphotographs of rock and soil thin sections or the photographs of their hand specimen and outcrops. Resultantly, it shows that UNetGE can extract approximately 300~1300 grains in a few seconds to a few minutes and provide their morphologic parameters, which will ably assist with analyses on the engineering properties of sediments and soils (e.g., permeability, strength, and expansivity) and their hydraulic characteristics.